


Just Because They Protect You Doesn't Mean They Like You

by NancyBrown



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Movie Fusion, Community: Reel Torchwood, F/M, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Necrophilia, Offensive Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-22
Updated: 2012-09-22
Packaged: 2017-11-14 19:54:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/518945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NancyBrown/pseuds/NancyBrown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Working for Torchwood Cardiff means dealing every day with aliens, time travellers, annoying co-workers, and worst of all, tourists.  A day in the life of someone who'd rather be somewhere else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Because They Protect You Doesn't Mean They Like You

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Clerks  
> Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Amy/Rory, implied Eleven/River, past Jack/Doctor, past Ianto/Lisa  
> Warnings: language, character death, dub-con, excessive whining, incredibly offensive humour. To paraphrase another warning, this is a terrible story and should not be read by anyone.  
> Beta: Fide Et Spe did an emergency beta on this and I say THANK YOU!  
> Spoilers: TW: goes AU from canon after "Adrift," DW: up through "Let's Kill Hitler"  
> AN: Written for Reel_Torchwood Fifth Screening.

[](http://nancybrown.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/417/1292)

***

Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom

6:13AM

***

The noise broke into the middle of Ianto's dream: a raucous buzzing and tweeting, like the repetitious caw of a thousand angry ... somethings. Birds? The dream morphed into terror -- giant, slouching, with skeletal black wings and razor-like beak -- then scattered to rags as he opened his eyes.

The noise continued.

Everything was dark. Ianto thrashed his limbs, did not encounter another body but did manage to unwind the blanket he'd wrapped around himself twice as he half-rolled, half-fell onto the floor. As he became more alert, he saw that he was nowhere near his bed but in fact had slept naked in the wardrobe.

His mobile kept ringing. He stumbled to where he'd dropped it on the night stand, flipped it open, and said in a sleep-roughened voice, "Yeah?"

"I woke you up."

Ianto rubbed a hand over his face. Events from the previous night made their presence known in his memory, pickled with a bit too much whisky and aged about three hours. "Did you catch the Weevil, then?" When the call came, Jack had kissed him stupid and told him to stay put. As Ianto had just experienced a fantastic orgasm, backed up against the wall of his wardrobe and buffered by shirts and suit coats, he hadn't been in the mood to argue.

"Yeah. Piece of cake. I didn't want to wake you, so I came back here."

"Thanks." 

"I need you to get dressed and head in." Jack's tone was apologetic, but Ianto heard the distinct sound of his lover sliding back into boss mode. Jack may have sucked Ianto's brains out through points south last night, but this morning, he was all work.

Work. "Today's my day off."

"I know."

"It's my first day off in four weeks." Four weeks which had included one of his co-workers taking an impromptu weekend to Spain with her new husband, but there was no point begrudging them. Gwen often spent weeks barely seeing Rhys. Ianto saw his own whatever-the-fuck-they-were-not-calling-it for sixteen to twenty hours out of every day.

"I know. I'm sorry. But there have been some weird sightings in Penarth, and the rest of us are going to go check them out. I want you on standby here in case we need backup support." The apology was in the order: Jack could have easily made Ianto go to the site with them, but instead would allow him to nurse his hangover in the quiet dark of the Hub. "It's just for a few hours."

"All right." He rubbed his face again. "Let me shower first and I'll be in."

"If you hold the shower, we can shower together here when I get back from Penarth." Boss Jack had swung pendulum-like back to can-I-just-call-him-my-boyfriend-already Jack, with the accompanying giddy, goofy glee.

"I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

***

The front door to the TIC hung askew from the frame. Ianto's steps slowed as he neared the wreckage, mouth forming into a vague imitation of "What the fuck?" over and over.

"Sorry," Jack said, appearing in the doorway, half-hidden by the splintered door.

"What happened?" Ianto tried walking at it from another angle. Still broken.

"Short story? We had to get inside fast."

"You had a key!"

"Dropped it," said Owen, walking out and looking entirely unapologetic. "Anyway, bit of paint, no-one will notice."

"The door is off!" The hinges were wrenched out of the wood. This wasn't a bit of paint, or even a simple rehanging. Ianto was staring carpentry in the face. Christ.

"Yeah," said Jack. "About that. I'll help you fix it when we get back, but right now, you need to keep an eye out from up here."

The headache from the hangover grew exponentially at the thought of sitting in the Tourist Office all morning. But it wouldn't do to leave the entrance to their top-secret base open to the public.

"I'll board it up."

Gwen said, "We need this entrance. Someone jammed gum in the lock from the car park entrance." Jack of course was the only one who could operate the lift from outside.

Ianto nodded, not trusting himself to open his mouth lest expletives pour out.

Jack's wrist beeped. "Gotta go." He really was contrite: he actually kissed Ianto on the cheek before dashing out behind Toshiko and Gwen, with Owen close on his heels.

"Fuck."

All right. Fine. The Tourist Office was technically a business, if one that suffered under an even more Byzantine arrangement for funding than the organisation it disguised. He went inside, found a large piece of clean paper, and wrote: "I assure you, we are open."

A cat, mostly black but for one paw, strolled through the open doorway, leapt up onto the counter, and established this as her spot. Ianto tried twice to shove her off, but Pusska would not be moved.

"It'd serve you right to be eaten by the next alien who walks in." He was replied to with a soft purr, and a demonstration of flexibility that exceeded even 51st century physiology. "Show off."

Ianto taped the sign to the wall outside the door, and then went to make the first pot of coffee before he tackled removing the damn door.

***

The call came at eight o'clock sharp, routed via the dummy numbers Toshiko had set up and to the phone at the tourist desk. The Caller ID read: _Francis Dawes_.

"Good morning," Ianto said as smoothly as he could, caffeine having knocked off the worst edges of his headache. "Cardiff Imports."

"Good morning, Mr. Randolph." Dawes had a tidy voice, as clipped as a manicured lawn. "I have something you might find of interest."

"Mr. Dawes, how nice to hear from you." Ianto pulled out his notepad. "What did you find?"

"I don't like to say over the telephone. People listening in."

A quick glance confirmed the system recording the call was operating normally. "Of course. Can you give me a hint?"

Dawes coughed. "'The angels have the phone box.'"

"I see. We'll be by later today."

"Thank you, Mr. Randolph."

"Thank you for contacting us."

Ianto sighed as he set the handset down. Honestly, if he had his way, Torchwood's front would be an antiques store, masking their regular searches and seizures of alien property with a legitimate business. Instead, he and Tosh (mostly Tosh) had set up a handful of false businesses: imports, collectables, memorabilia. They had websites, business cards, and quietly unassailable false identities through which to acquire alien artefacts sitting in the mildewed basements and dusty collections of the unwitting.

"Mr. Randolph" dealt in rare collectibles and odd items, as did Dawes. Sometimes Dawes had a dismantled shield generator, sometimes (like today) he had another DVD he'd stumbled upon, unaware that these were mass-produced with the same odd message from the Doctor. The production of the DVDs, seventeen titles in all, had ceased, and Martha (who was also in the message) said the event it referenced had occurred. This did not stop Jack from confiscating the DVDs as they came in, taking them into his office, and using them as wanking material. (Knowing this, Ianto had purchased a pair of reading glasses identical to those worn by the Doctor in the Easter egg, and he got shagged within an inch of his life whenever he wore them.) 

The DVDs could wait.

***

For a dinky out of the way office tucked back on Mermaid Quay, the TIC did a brisk business when it was open. Ianto tried to arrange his life so that this happened as little as possible, refusing to post hours he wouldn't keep anyway, locking the door at random, and providing intentionally out of date maps and dog-eared guidebooks to the poor souls who did wander in. He wasn't a total arse. Torchwood's favourite delivery drivers thought he must be hypoglycaemic for all the food he ordered, and he tipped them enough to keep them prompt and pleasant. When the other local establishments sent emissaries, often seeking extra maps or directions for weekend trips, he made sure to Google the best routes for them.

The Grannies were another thing entirely.

They always came in pairs or gaggles, never singly. The Gaggle Grannies tended to wear red hats and call each another "the girls." The longer they stayed in the Centre asking about local attractions, the higher the likelihood that one of them would cackle some joke that would make even Jack blush. The Paired Grannies were older than the Gaggles, as a rule, six teeth between them and smelling of cats and mothballs, always in colour-coordinated shawls. These Grannies tended towards the doddering, asking about parts of Cardiff that had been bulldozed for renovation years ago. The longer they stayed in the Centre, the higher the likelihood one would point out Ianto's lack of a wedding ring and mention a granddaughter or a niece.

Grannies of either variety were far better than the Welshaboos, which also came in two varieties: English and American. English Welshaboos were always in uni, always wore casually frumpy clothes that cost more than Ianto's entire teenage wardrobe had, and always had some ancestor, respectably far back, who was Welsh. They all wanted to "see the homeland" and expected Ianto to give them the secret insider's tour guide or some shit. American Welshaboos were distinguishable from English ones because the Americans spoke a small amount of Welsh badly, had a Welsh ancestor even farther back, and wanted to take pictures of Ianto. Sometimes they asked where the Millennium Centre was.

Jack said Ianto wasn't allowed to shoot them unless he was pretty sure they were aliens.

"My granddaughter Enid is about your age," said the peach-shawled Granny at the counter, as her blue-shawled associate fingered stickily through the brochures in the rack, gnawing open-mouthed at a sweet.

Ianto had a cousin Enid, on his dad's side. He hadn't seen her since the funeral, and not for five years before that. In his memory, she was forever a dark-haired teenager with spots and braces, perpetually embarrassed by both. He smiled politely at the Granny.

"I have her telephone number, let me give it to you," said the Granny, pulling a slimline mobile phone out of her grey string bag, stabbing at the keys viciously.

"Thank you," Ianto said, mouth frozen in the smile. He used to push them off with mutters about his girlfriend who'd recently passed away. Today he couldn't bear the thought.

Blue Granny came over with a single brochure, leaving her sticky fingerprints behind on a dozen others. She sucked on her sweet as her friend scribbled down a number on a slip of paper.

It was at this point that the doorway darkened with bodies, the team returning from their mission. Tosh was first through the door. She took one look at Ianto before she pulled out a smile and said loudly, "Here we go! I'm sure they'll have maps."

The team did not perform Fake Tourists well. Owen didn't even bother. He just lounged against one wall, arms folded, waiting for the Grannies to depart so Ianto could open the door to the base. Gwen made for the brochure rack, mouth pouting when she saw the gooey fingerprints everywhere. Jack of course insinuated himself at the counter.

"Hello, ladies," he said with a broad grin. Ianto noticed the tell-tale glance as Jack ran them through his extensive mental black book and, thankfully for Ianto, came up empty. "What brings you here? Looking for a private tour of the Bay?"

"Nonsense," said Blue Granny, the first word she'd spoken since wandering inside with her friend.

"I was just telling this young man about my granddaughter."

Jack bent over and snogged Ianto hard. Normally they avoided public displays in front of the team. Owen's rolling eyes, Tosh's titter, and Gwen's inscrutable expression were why. Nevertheless, Ianto kissed him right back as Peach Granny sputtered into silence.

"Well then," she said when they broke apart. "You might of said." The two departed quickly. Jack burst into a laugh the second they were too far to hear.

"Open the bloody door," said Owen, then reached for the button himself.

Jack said, "How many granddaughters does that make this week?"

"Two. The other three were nieces." He nodded at Gwen and Tosh as they went through the door. "Coffee should be ready to pour."

"Thanks, pet," Gwen said. "Jack, coming down?"

"Not now."

She closed the door behind her, and it was a wall again. The first time he'd seen the trick, Ianto had thought it was amazing, a super-secret spy lair. Now he paid attention to the hinges and reminded himself to oil them.

"Two granddaughters and three nieces," Jack said, moving behind the counter and looming into Ianto's personal space. "Should I be jealous?"

"This one was named Enid."

"I like girls named Enid. They all have this shy librarian look, but they're into the kinkiest stuff."

Cousin Enid popped into the forefront of Ianto's mind again, complete with braces and plastic spectacles but this time she was dressed in that same outfit Jack had talked him into trying on last week. He shook his head hard to dispel the image.

"How was Penarth?"

"Holoprojector at a jumble sale. Hardly worth the trip." Jack's hand had snaked around Ianto neatly. He wasn't possessive. It was merely that every time he found out about another Granny attempting to match Ianto up with a granddaughter (or niece, and more than once a nephew because some of the Grannies _were_ forward-thinking) Jack felt the need to remind Ianto of certain things.

Ianto settled his hip more firmly against Jack's side. He liked reminders.

"The door is off its hinges."

"Yeah," said Jack, grinning, and he glanced behind the counter, out of sight of the door and in a blind spot of the CCTV.

***  
Twenty to thirty minutes later  
***

Ianto's back was against the wall, cold seeping through his suit. Jack lay semi-sprawled in his arms, and thus Ianto didn't mind cooling off or the terrible state his suit would be in later. Dusty, wrinkled trousers were a small price to pay for this quiet moment, not snuggling, but relaxing with Jack in between disasters.

"We should fix that door," Jack said lethargically, his hair skewed and pricking Ianto's chin. "You do business here sometimes. We might get robbed."

"Nah. The teenagers filch maps all the time while I'm standing right there, but not when I leave the desk unattended. They think they're being watched on a hidden camera so they behave."

"They _are_ being watched on a hidden camera."

"Not the point."

"I guess. Humans do tend to behave for the invisible threats much more than the present ones. Look at religion. You people will go to war, lie, cheat, steal, and shag yourselves silly, but convince you there's an invisible dad in the room telling you to stop, and...."

"....and we'll do the exact same things but feel guilty later."

"Exactly." Jack frowned. "Wait."

"Do we get past that by your time?"

"Guilt?"

"Guilt. Religion. Whatever." Ianto was always curious about Jack's home time, not to mention his home planet. Jack was infuriatingly silent on both.

"There's no guilt over sex."

"I figured that one out on my own." Ianto had known Jack's reputation long before they'd met. By 21st Century standards, the kindest word was "lothario." But Ianto had learned 51st Century standards were quite different, and Jack's extended lifespan matched with Jack's amazing libido indicated his past conquests had to number in the triple digits. "I couldn't begin to count how many people you've been with, without a care in the world."

Jack lay back more comfortably. "I wouldn't describe it that way. I cared if they had a good time. I cared if they were going to hate themselves in the morning. I've never slept with a married person unless all their spouses were okay with it." His eyes took on that particular look of fond memory. "Or joined in. That's always a blast. There was this one time...."

"Skip it."

"Fine," he said amiably. "The last time I counted, the number was at one thousand thirty-six."

Ianto stiffened. Not in the fun way. "You must be joking."

"Nope. I used to keep records. When I first found myself stranded in Cardiff, I'd had some memory problems. I made a list of everyone I did remember. Updated the list when I thought about it."

"You've had sex with one thousand thirty-six people?"

"One thousand thirty-six sentient consenting beings, that I can remember. And not all at once. Although that _would_ be one for the records books. World's biggest orgy." His expression went dreamy again. Jack wasn't psychic, and the only documented occasion they had on record of his projecting his thoughts involved Toshiko and that alien pendant thing, but Ianto still saw very clearly in his mind's eye the giant football pitch filled with naked arses that was surely entertaining Jack's inner mental landscape right now: pale pink, deep brown, golden tans, several blues and greens and greys interspersed. There were probably robots, trees, and dogs in there, too. Birds. Bugs. Squids.

"Am I on that list?"

"Okay, one thousand and thirty-seven."

Another naked arse joined the happy fray. Ianto shook his head to clear it. "That's a lot of people to remember. I don't suppose you even got all their names."

"I tried to ask. Kind of hard to with a leather ball in my mouth."

The giant pile of naked people was evicted from Ianto's imagination and replaced with a far more pleasant picture: Jack kneeling with his arms bound behind him, gagged, a pretty leather cord around his throat, head bowed and sly eyes which winked coquettishly as he waited for instruction.

"Was that the only thing in your mouth?" He could hear the huskiness creeping into his own voice.

Jack matched his timbre, eyes already alight with the prospect of more sex. "Not remotely. So what about you? How many skeletons in your closet have you boned?"

He didn't have to count. "Ten. Including you."

That drew another frown, puckering Jack's forehead. "Really?"

"Yes, really."

"That's kind of...."

"I know it's not up in your numbers."

"....a lot."

Ianto blinked. "Did you not just tell me you've had sex with over a thousand people?"

"Yeah but I'm almost two hundred years old. You're twenty-six. You started dating Lisa when you were twenty-two." The old electrical shock moved through him at her name. "And you told me you lost your virginity when you were seventeen. That seems kinda fast for you."

"I thought you said there wasn't any guilt about sex in your time."

Ianto had gone through plenty of sex-related guilt: convincing his first girlfriend that blow jobs didn't count as sex so she could still call herself a virgin; shagging his mate's sister then breaking up with her a week later when he moved to London; the night he and his flat mate got pissed after his flat mate's girlfriend broke up with him, and they wound up wanking each other on the rug. After that night Barry wouldn't look him in the eye and started hunting for a new flat. Even his first few times with Jack made him squirm with regrets, but Jack was the black hole where guilt went in and never came back.

"I didn't say you ought to feel guilty. I said that seemed like a lot of people for you."

"Says the man who comes on to anything with a pulse. You've shagged half of Cardiff."

Jack opened his mouth to argue when the noise started. His spine snapped ruler-straight, coincidentally smacking his skull into Ianto's jaw, jamming Ianto's teeth together painfully. Jack scrambled up while Ianto rubbed his sore mouth. The noise grew, a kind of humming, grinding sound.

Ianto had spent hours rewatching the CCTV footage of Jack's mad dash across the Plass, accompanied by an unusual noise, and a blue police box Ianto identified all too easily. Orientation at Torchwood London included the ten points of identification for Torchwood's Enemy Number One. There'd been a quiz. Keen and fresh Torchwood employees learned to rattle off the points.

(Blue box, sonic screwdriver, two hearts, pretty young companion, tin dog, bad fashion sense, older than appearance, brilliantly dangerous, UNIT ally, Gallifrey.)

Older and less naïve employees could also list the points, mocking how hard it was to find a dotty old man who spent his free time with UNIT. The oldest employees would tell rumours over pints that the Doctor had already been captured and worked at another Torchwood branch for Queen and country. When Ianto had first researched Torchwood Cardiff, he'd diligently noted how many points Captain Harkness had, though he'd been confident back then Jack didn't have a heart at all, much less two.

Jack was already out through the broken door, and Ianto was still on his arse on the floor. He found his feet and pounded out the doorway after Jack. He was not letting his lover vanish into that damn TARDIS again without him.

His heels skidded on the pavement, catching up as Jack approached the TARDIS, which was parked directly over the lift. A blue door swung open. Three people emerged and proceeded to completely ignore the bouncy man in front of them.

"Fancy meeting you here," Jack said, out of breath and ludicrous in his lack of nonchalance.

"Doctor?" said the woman, red-haired and quite attractive.

"It's here," a youngish man said, squinting at the, yes, sonic screwdriver. He wore a bowtie and trousers pulled up like someone's granddad. Ianto declined the opportunity to test how many hearts he had.

"Where?" Her head darted back and forth, completely overlooking Jack.

He pointed. "That way!"

He dashed off away from the Bay, the redhead at his heels, the youngish man with them following behind. Ten paces away, the Doctor called back to a gape-mouthed Jack. "Are you coming?"

Jack told Ianto, "Get back to the Hub, tell the others," and he took off after them.

Ianto's first impulse was to join the pursuit. He was damned if he'd let Jack leave this way. But Jack wasn't getting into the TARDIS, wasn't transmatting off somewhere, and he'd just given Ianto an order.

Ianto took one look at the lift, which was currently inaccessible. "Fuck." He turned around and trotted back towards the TIC in a foul temper.

***

His announcement that Jack had once again fucked off somewhere with the Doctor was greeted with less dismay than he thought it warranted. Jack had already contacted them before Ianto had even made his way down to the Hub.

Gwen said, "The TARDIS is parked right over the lift. He's not going anywhere."

Tosh said, "His comm is on, and I'm tracking them via the CCTV. We can join him in minutes if he wants our help."

Owen said, "D'you think they'll start fucking out there in the street or wait until they get back?"

Owen was a prick, really.

"You'll keep us posted, right?" Ianto asked Tosh, who nodded.

"How's the door?" Gwen asked.

The door was not in better shape than it had been. By the time Ianto had returned, and possibly even whilst he and Jack had been occupied behind the desk, someone had spray-painted "Ozzer is a tozzer" on the broken door. "Broken and graffitied."

"Bunch of savages in this town," Owen said, ignoring the double death glares Ianto and Gwen sent him.

"Jack was going to help me fix it," Ianto said, mostly to himself as he headed towards the supply cupboard. "I'm not even supposed to be here today."

The girls made vaguely sympathetic if uninterested noises, turning back to their own work. "You're a beam of sunshine," Owen said.

"The front door is broken, and my boyfriend has shagged one thousand thirty-seven people."

Owen's face took on a cast of great respect. "Today?"

"No, not today."

"Oh." Owen shouted over to Tosh, "Did we ever set up a proper betting pool on that?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because you kept asking Jack," she said, "and he kept telling bigger and bigger lies until you shut up."

Gwen said, "Are you sure they were lies? This is Jack we're talking about. Mind you, I'm not sure I believe the one about the alien spider."

Ianto did believe the one about the alien spider. Jack had filmed it on his wrist strap, along with plenty of other homemade pornography. Now that Ianto considered it, he must have seen glimpses of at minimum thirty or forty of Jack's previous lovers in the footage: men, women, intersexed humans, aliens with extra genders and oh God, the tentacles and feathers. Jack liked the ones with feathers. Ianto had watched the alien spider film in an equal admixture of curiosity and disbelieving horror. Mandibles shouldn't work that way.

Distracted by intrusive thoughts of alien sexual positions, he found the carpentry supplies he needed in the cupboard. Owen had wandered back to his own workstation and was unashamedly Googling for porn. Tosh was working. Gwen had her "thinking about what Jack was like in bed" face on again, which was Ianto's own fault. He'd given the others a few stories over several beers, back when Gwen had been in charge, back when Jack was missing. The team had pushed Ianto for details and he'd offered up Jack's atrocious bed manners on the sacrificial altar of both satisfying their curiosity and scoring points to soothe his own hurt at having been left behind. Whatever his reasons for telling, Ianto maintained that there were times a man should not fart, no matter how "relaxed" he claimed to be at the time. Jesus. The worst part was, Jack still thought it was funny.

Grumbling, Ianto went back up to see what he could do about the door.

***

The four of them came down the Quay, Jack and the Doctor talking very loudly, and the two of them drowned out at times by the redhead. Ianto put on his polite face. He would greet the Doctor and his companions formally, offer them refreshments and any services they required. Jack had run off without warning when the TARDIS had parked on the Plass a year or so ago, and the last time the Doctor had set foot in a Torchwood facility Ianto's entire world had come crashing down around his ears. However these were no reasons not to be completely, perfectly, icily polite to the man.

Then Ianto noticed the fifth figure with the group. It was clearly an alien: two extra arms and a face only its female parental figure (and possibly Jack) could love.

And behind them, coming up with the determined slow implacable ferocity displayed only by generals and old ladies at a jumble sale, came three Grannies hell-bent on reaching the TIC.

"Oh fuck," were the first words Ianto spoke to the Doctor that weren't through a subwave network. (Hadn't that been fun, trapped in the Hub with Owen, Tosh, Gwen, and a time-locked Dalek while Jack -- wait for it! -- fucked off with the Doctor?)

Jack glared. The redhead sparkled delightedly. The young man with them rolled his eyes. And the Doctor said, "One of yours, I take it?" This was to Jack, though the Doctor said the words too casually, with a practised air.

"Yeah. Apparently we need to go over the employee manual again. Ianto."

"Sorry," he said loudly, with his brightest underling smile. "We're closed. You'll have to come back after lunch." He ripped off his hand-printed sign while smiling past them to the approaching Grannies.

Jack caught on, finally, and turned around to see himself facing down a group whose combined ages surpassed even his. His eyes slid to the alien in their midst, whom, Ianto noted, wasn't restrained in any way. Not a threat, then, but hardly someone to bring to the front door. Even with the TARDIS parked on the lift, they had the car park entrance and Jack could bloody well pick that lock, gum and all.

"Hello, ladies," Jack said, in full charm mode. "We got here too late, gang," he said to the Doctor and his friends. "We'll have to catch that tour another time."

"We don't have time for a tour, Jack," the Doctor said. "As I explained, it's vital that we...."

"See how the city improvements have been going since our last holiday. I know, I know."

"They're quite spectacular," Ianto chimed in automatically. "Cardiff has grown since 2007."

"Oh, we missed it!" said the first Granny, who wore a pink shawl. "I told you we shouldn't have stopped."

"I needed the loo," said the Granny in lavender. "He won't let me use the loo in the Tourist Centre."

Jack turned on Ianto. "You won't let nice old ladies use your toilet? For shame."

"We don't have public toilets." Which was a very good policy, he considered. The hygiene of the Hub's toilets had improved dramatically with Owen's undead condition. (Gwen and Toshiko weren't slobs, and Jack knew better than to antagonise anyone whose teeth regularly came into close proximity with his dick.) Prior to Owen's death, the toilet up in the TIC was the only one Ianto felt he could reasonably ban the others from, which made it perfect as a hideaway or a quick spot for a shag.

The third Granny, who wore a stained white shawl, squinted up at the alien. "What's this, then?"

"This?" the Doctor said, flustered. "This is…."

"My cousin Olaf," said the redhead. "He's from Russia."

"He doesn't look Russian," said Lavender Granny.

Pink Granny began patting her pockets for paper and pencil, probably to give Olaf the telephone number of her niece Enid.

Jack said, "We should get Olaf inside. Come on, Olaf." He grabbed one of Olaf's many hands.

"You can't go inside," Pink Granny reminded him.

"Right." Jack mouthed the word 'garage' to Ianto and led the alien away. The Doctor and the other two stayed put. So did the Grannies.

"Come back at one," Ianto told the nearest Granny. She and her friends huffed away. As they moved out of sight, he heard one of them talking about finding another toilet.

Which left him alone with the Doctor and the Doctor's friends.

"Would you like to step inside?" He still had a chance at that icy politeness, though his cool was melting under the Doctor's lopsided smile. The alien, Torchwood's bane and Jack's private obsession, was currently watching Ianto as though he was the punchline to a joke only the Doctor knew. Fucker.

"Can't, I'm afraid. Lembo is helping you lot with one of your enquiries. We're still looking for our objective."

He mouthed, "Lembo?"

The redhead said, "Olaf."

Belatedly, he held out his hand to her. "Ianto Jones. It's a pleasure to meet you."

She blinked. "Yeah, I know who you are, Ianto." A moment later, light dawned in her eyes and she spun on the Doctor. "You did it again, didn't you? This is like with River."

"Did what?" Ianto asked. River? Did they need directions to the Taff?

"Sorry. Yes," said the Doctor. "Slightly out of order. Nothing to worry about."

"Amy Pond," said the redhead, shaking his hand with a smile as flirty as any Jack had ever given him. "Good to see you." She indicated the silent man beside her. "That's Rory," Amy said. "He's the light of my life, the strum to my strings, the Spencer to my Marks."

"All right, all right," said the Doctor. Amy grinned. Rory shook Ianto's hand but didn't say hello.

"Rory can't say anything right now," Amy said, a giggle in her voice. Rory glared at her, in an annoyed but patient fashion which Ianto was weirdly fascinated to recognise on someone else's face for once. "He's got the Boogey-Woogey Flu." The patient expression went more annoyed.

He turned to Ianto, waved at him to step back, and opened his mouth and snapped it shut quickly. Amy and the Doctor already had their hands flung over their ears but Ianto was subjected to a mercifully short high-pitched blast of noise that shouldn't have been possible from a human mouth. His ears kept ringing after Rory shut his mouth.

The Doctor said, "Don't do that."

Amy said, "A demonstration is worth a thousand words."

"It's all right," said Ianto. "Half of Mermaid Quay thinks we're selling drugs for the Mafia. They're used to weird."

The inner door opened, and Jack emerged out of breath. He must have run all the way. "Olaf's below with Tosh."

"Lembo," corrected the Doctor.

"I like 'Olaf.' It's got a ring to it."

The Doctor ignored him. "Amy, Rory, stay here. If our target appears, it'll probably come right to us. Stand outside, see if you see anything unusual." He glanced at Jack and Ianto. "Unusual for Torchwood. So, not unusual at all around here. Just keep your eyes open and keep out of corridors."

Amy gave him a mock salute. "Thank you for those very specific instructions." She grabbed Rory's arm and stationed him on one side of the broken door. "Speaking of instructions, while you're down there with Captain Hotpants," Jack brightened at this description, "see if he can't give you some advice."

The Doctor's brow furrowed. "Advice?"

"You know. _Advice_." Amy attempted to give a knowing look. Rory rubbed his face with his hands in an embarrassed gesture. "You and River are going backwards to each other. You've got a wedding night coming up soon. Get some advice on making it," she paused, grinning, "fun."

Jack's face contorted unusually, and he took a step back from the Doctor, his arms folding. "Wait. You're getting married?"

"Yes. Probably." The Doctor's fluster was apparent. "I mean, she wasn't entirely clear about the matter, and I'm certain she's lying on particular details. Also she was programmed to kill me and I think she's going to try again. But in the larger sense, yes. Yes, I'm getting married."

Jack's expression didn't change. "That's.... Huh."

Ianto said loudly, "I wonder how Tosh is getting on with Olaf."

"Olaf," said Jack. "Right." He held out his arm to gesture the Doctor inside, very specifically not touching him in any way. "So, married. What's she like?" No-one was fooled by his casual tone.

Ianto ignored the tight squirm in his own stomach as the pair went through the secret door. He gave Amy a falsely pleasant smile. "Back to work." He examined the outer door frame.

Amy ignored him and talked to her silent partner. "I've been thinking about River. Trying not to. You know how I get."

Rory nodded his head, a kind, sad expression on his face.

"And I've been thinking about all the time we spent with Mels."

Rory smiled.

"D'you remember that time when she stole the weed from those boys in seventh form? We all went to her place. Her foster parents were never home. Guess we should've thought more about that, huh?"

Another sad smile.

"I've been remembering the three of us sitting around, coughing our lungs out because we didn't know what we were doing. Remember that?"

A nod.

"It's just, we're her parents. We're supposed to be the ones telling her not to use drugs. We're the worst parents ever."

Her face was caught in a sad memory. Ianto didn't know where to begin. These two people, who both looked younger than he did, had a daughter who was old enough to steal drugs and smoke?

Rory went over to Amy and placed an arm around her. Then he did a quick pantomime. She translated: "'Mels wasn't a bad kid. We only smoked dope once, and we all got so sick we never picked it up again.' You're right. I still feel awful."

He shrugged, in the universal sign of, "Yes, but what can you do about it now?"

Ianto turned back to the door. Jack's friends were weird.

***

Half an hour later, Tosh and Gwen went on a quick visit to collect the DVD from Dawes.

"Jack's orders," Tosh said, collecting the business cards from Ianto's desk.

As she headed to the still-not-repaired door, Gwen said, "The Doctor apologised about the whole thing. Said poor Martha had to support them both because he kept getting fired."

"Who's Martha?" Amy asked.

Ianto shared a look with Tosh and Gwen. Pretty young companions came and went. Jack had known some of them, but the Doctor didn't keep them, he used them up and went looking for another.

"Friend of ours," said Gwen. "Used to travel with the Doctor. Maybe the two of you can have a chat later."

As they went out, Ianto opened the drawer of his desk. The day just got longer and longer, and he was dying for a fag. He'd been rationing this pack out, trying to quit and pretending to Jack that he already had. If he finished these, he wouldn't buy more. Because working for Torchwood definitely meant he had lung cancer to fear later on in life.

A family came into the Tourist Centre, and Ianto placed as professional a smile as he could muster over his face. Yes, they had maps of the city centre. Yes, he could recommend a nearby pub for a traditional meal. Yes, he could ignore the mum's not remotely quiet asides to her husband that Ianto was likely in cahoots with the locals to send business their way and get a good cut from the deal. The older child, a boy, kept touching all the displays, leaving fingerprints Ianto could see from a distance. The younger child, a girl, stood butted right next to the desk, staring up at him and grinning the entire time.

"You got a potty?" she asked brightly.

"Sorry," he replied with what he incorrectly believed to be an appropriately jolly tone for children. "Not open for the public. There's a Tesco Express not far from here and you can ask them."

The mum took a copy of every map and flier Ianto had, even the exceptionally out-of-date ones, without a thank you and with continued shushing of her elder offspring, who was currently redecorating the side of the desk with handprints.

When they finally left, Ianto grabbed for his cigarettes, only to discover they'd vanished. Not on the desk, not on the floor, not back in the drawer, not in a pocket. He considered asking Amy if she had any, but nixed that plan. Quitting. Right.

A few minutes later, Owen tromped up from the Hub and proceeded to take over Ianto's computer space.

"What are you researching?"

"Children's programming." Loud moans from a porno star's faked orgasm emanated from the speakers.

"If you want to remind yourself that you can't get an erection, please do so on your own computer."

"Yours has a better graphics card. Do you reckon if I blew Jack, he'd requisition me a new one?"

Ianto counted to ten slowly in his head, because rising to Owen's bait had never once worked in his favour. "I'm the one who puts in all the requisitions. I would buy you a new one if you promise never, ever to blow me."

"It's a deal."

"Turn that off."

"This is the good part. Look, you can see her kidneys."

"There is a woman right outside the door." Which was a lie, as Amy picked that moment to walk in, a bright smile on her face. Ianto felt the blush burn up his neck as the moans continued.

"What're you watching, boys?" she asked mirthfully.

"Happy Scrappy Hero Pup," said Owen, as she swung herself around the desk to see.

"I've done that," Amy said, standing with a critical tilt to her head. "It hurts your knees if you're in that position too long. Rory! Come see this!"

Rory came into the office, eyebrows raising at the sounds. Ianto wanted to drop through the floor, but Owen just rested his arms behind his head. Amy pointed at the screen. "Remember when we tried that one?"

Rory nodded, and covered his face with one hand. Amy went on, "Okay, now that we haven't tried yet. Get a good look. Maybe after, we can go back to the TARDIS and...." He grabbed her hand, and walked her out of the Tourist Office back to their stances outside, where Ianto could just hear her continue to describe acrobatic sexual positions she'd like to try. One involved a circus seal.

With Owen up here, Ianto could easily slip down to the Hub to see what Jack was doing all alone with the Doctor. Not that he worried.

As he entered through the cog wheel door, he saw the Doctor sitting at Toshiko's computer terminal, Jack leaning over him to point out something on the screen. But Ianto had sat in that chair, or chairs just like it, and Jack had leaned against him from behind in precisely this fashion, Jack's warmth and his unique cinnamon-amber-musk going full-blast. More times than he could count, this alone had been enough for Ianto to lose his reason (and shortly thereafter, his trousers).

He cleared his throat.

Jack glanced up. Was he startled? Disappointed? "Ianto Jones, just the man I wanted to see."

I'm sure, Ianto thought, making his way to the workstation and stepping close enough that Jack had to move away from the Doctor's chair or be trod on. His expression read confused and mildly hurt, but Ianto wasn't buying it.

"What do you need?"

Jack's arm moved past him to the screen. "We're still tracking the alien, but this just popped up."

A newspaper article with a photo was on the screen. The Doctor said, "Poor girl died yesterday in a swimming pool accident."

Ianto felt it was not in his best interests to say "So?" and definitely not to say "This is Cardiff, people die all the time from incredibly stupid things usually related to annoying aliens." What would Gwen say? Oh yes. "That's terrible. What happened?"

"We think she drowned because of this," Jack said, pointing at her photograph. The teenaged girl, identified as one Julie Dwyer of Roath, wore a carved gemstone ring on the hand holding her chin.

"Holdenbanky crystals," said the Doctor. "Nasty things. Completely harmless for years, until they come into contact with hypochlorite ions, and then…."

Jack made a sound like a scratch. "Anyway, the body is being viewed today. You and Owen can go to the viewing, pay your respects, and get the ring. We'll keep working on the Doctor's issue here."

"Isn't it more your purview to desecrate and molest dead bodies?"

Jack shook his head. "I really think Owen's the expert on molesting dead bodies, and you do handle all the corpses who aren't walking around on their own two feet. Hurry up, the viewing starts in twenty minutes."

"Fine." Ianto stalked away. His clothing wasn't appropriate, but he kept a black suit with a plain white shirt in Jack's bunker for emergency clothing changes and unexpected sleepovers. He made one last play. "Help me change?"

"Not right now."

"Not even supposed to be here today," Ianto muttered, and went to Jack's office alone.

***

"Have you ever managed to fellate yourself?"

And this was why Ianto hated being sent out with Owen. "Your obsession with sex now that you can't have any really does border on the unhealthy."

"If I can't do it, I can fucking talk about it. Lighten up, Jones. If you don't pull that stick out of your arse, Jack won't be able to get in there later."

Ianto bit his tongue, with effort. Owen -- and for that matter, Gwen and Toshiko as well -- assumed Jack and Ianto's relationship in bed mirrored their working relationship, with Jack the one in charge and, in their minds, on top. Ianto would love to shoot back that their oh-so-alpha-male boss liked nothing more in bed than being tied down and buggered hard, but the truth was, Jack's tastes were complex. Yes, Jack enjoyed getting fucked, and he enjoyed fucking, and he enjoyed taking Ianto's cock down his throat, and he enjoyed dressing up like cowboys, and he enjoyed being collared and ordered and taken care of like a pet, and he enjoyed paddling Ianto until his bottom was bright red. Jack liked everything even tangentially related to sex, and Ianto enjoyed himself with every new trick. But he didn't want to give up those pieces to Owen, not the scant remaining secrets of his sex life with their employer. The things the two of them shared that didn't make their way into yet another Harkness dirty story were the only evidence Ianto had that whatever-this-was meant more to Jack than an easy shag with the first available warm body.

Or one thousand thirty-seven warm bodies.

"That was a stop sign," Owen said amiably. "You probably should have stopped."

"We're almost there. Look, we'll go in, I'll be the nice one and pay my respects to the family." He glanced at Owen, who had stayed in his t-shirt and jeans. "You check out the body and get the ring. We should be in there five minutes. Agreed."

"Whatever. You never answered my question. You ever tried to suck yourself off? I had a cousin Walter who died doing it."

"What?"

"Yep. His mum found his body, broke his own neck. But he made it, died with his balls on his own nose."

The mental image was weirdly intriguing. Jack had once claimed to be able to do that, but he'd never demonstrated.

"I never could reach," Ianto admitted, pulling the car to a stop in front of the funeral home.

"Reach what?"

"You know." His neck had hurt for hours after. "I couldn't bend far enough."

Owen made a face. "You actually tried? Sick bastard." He led the way into the funeral home, Ianto following behind and wondering how many body parts a porn-watching zombie could lose and still function. He could find out, for science.

***  
Five minutes later  
***

Working for Torchwood meant developing the ability to outrun various life-threatening creatures. Ianto had not previously considered a middle-aged mum, grieving her daughter's unexpected death, would be such a threat. Nevertheless, he barely made it back to the car alive. Owen had no such luck, but a) it was his fault, and b) he was dead anyway.

Ianto's foot buried the accelerator as they peeled out, irate aunties, grannies, and more piling angrily out after them.

"Fuck," Ianto said, flooring it.

"They're overreacting."

"You groped the corpse!"

"She was falling!"

"Because you tipped over the casket!"

"I got the bloody ring, didn't I?" He showed off the prize.

"Fuck," said Ianto again.

***

When they made it back to the Hub, Gwen and Tosh had returned. Jack and the Doctor were nowhere to be seen, and they had left Amy and Rory in front of the Tourist Office. They didn't show as Ianto logged in the Drowning Ring. Jack didn't check in via the comms as Ianto continued work on the broken door.

A series of the usual annoying customers walked through the door: the stoned uni students, more Grannies asking for the loo, and one arsehole who tried to convince Ianto to sell his brand of chewing gum for Welsh pride. He couldn't make a good case for any of them being aliens, so no attacking today. Alas. Instead, Ianto fought back with paperwork, printing out forty-nine pages of paperwork for the man to fill out to be considered as a vendor for Visit Wales, and sent him on his way.

Still no word from Jack.

He told Amy he was going back down to the main Hub for a few minutes. She waved at him absently; at some point during the day, she had retrieved an iPod from the TARDIS (he guessed) and was busy dancing to a song only she could hear. The lyrics she sang under her breath sounded obscene, and part of him wanted to listen in, but Rory gave him a Look.

"Right." Back downstairs, everyone had their own projects going. Gwen had been tasked with finding historical references to photographs and daguerreotypes containing images of a long, thin man in a suit standing off to the side in the back of photographs. Toshiko was tracking down reports of a shared computer file which ostensibly drove humans mad with merely a glimpse of the attached photograph of a demoniacally-smiling dog, on the printout of which Owen had (at some point) drawn a moustache and added the caption: "I lick my own balls." On closer inspection, the handwriting looked more like Jack's.

Owen was supposed to be investigating rumours of some children's programme no-one had ever licensed in this country or any other though many young adults now claimed memories of having watched. They all had similar terrified recollections, and even Ianto thought he could recall the pirates and awful skin-stealing monsters that made up the charming childhood novelty. Why investigating witnesses and watching hours of static had become Owen's job baffled Ianto, but he suspected Jack was punishing him for something.

Instead of working on his assignment, Owen waited for Ianto at the doorway like he was expecting him.

"Something I missed?" Ianto asked, instead of making another joke about haunting the Hub. Gwen's mobile rang.

"Just taking a break to admire the view."

Ianto followed his glance, but didn't see anything Owen would typically call admirable, just the screwy typical workplace of a steampunk alien-fighting secret base that could use another go-round with the dustmop.

"If you're pointing to the mess, you may be dead but your arms aren't broken."

"Torchwood is a microcosm of humanity," Owen said, not listening. "Like in the outer world, the people here come in exactly two varieties: obnoxious," he gestured at Gwen shouting at Rhys on the phone, "and pathetic." This gesture was for Toshiko, who'd just dropped her stylus to the floor and was digging around unflatteringly on hands and knees to find it.

"Fuck off."

Owen smiled mirthlessly. "There's the spirit. Keep it up, and you'll make it into the 'obnoxious' camp someday, too."

Ianto shrugged him off and went the rest of the way in as Gwen finished her call. "Should I ask?"

She frowned. "Best not to." Distracted, she ran a hand through her hair. "Since we're looking to be here a good while longer until Jack and the Doctor get back, do you think you could get us some supper?"

He overlooked the implication. "Sure." Jack's office was free, unfortunately, so he used the phone in there to order, quietly also flipping around the CCTV cameras to look for a glimpse of where Jack had gone with the Doctor. No luck. Unhappy and not wanting to look unhappy, he put in an order for a large pan of lasagne and extra garlic bread from Casa Celi for takeaway. When the time came to pick it up, he grumbled through his wait in line for his order and all the way back again. Grudgingly, he invited Amy and Rory down, since they were in the same boat, waiting for word. More satisfying was watching Owen slink away, unable to join the rest of them for the meal.

"The Tourist Office still needs a warm body," said Ianto. "But yours will do."

Owen flipped him off and went back upstairs.

***

The Tourist Centre was the most fucking boring assignment in the history of fucking Torchwood. Back in the old days, Jack had used staffing the fucking place as a punishment: death by tedium and obnoxious tourists. Owen had spent many an hour sitting in this fucking chair glaring at these fucking idiots as they asked for directions to the fucking place across the street. Then _someone_ had offered to suck Jack's dick in exchange for a job, and when it'd been _his_ turn, he turned out to fucking enjoy sorting the fucking brochures. It was a match made in banal Heaven.

And now Owen was stuck up here. Fuck.

He opened another window for porn. Sure he couldn't get an erection, but he fucking remembered.

Just as it was getting good, one of the millions of goddamned pensioners who lived within two bloody minutes of this place wandered in. She glared over the top of her pearl-shell glasses. "Do you have a toilet?"

He opened his mouth to say they were only for the staff. Then he remembered the taste of lasagne. Fuck it. "Through there."

Owen returned to his viewing, tonight's selection being three tabs of foursomes and two tabs of chicks with dicks that put his to shame. He settled in for his educational viewing when, from the direction of the toilet, he heard the granny ask, "Young man?"

He ignored her.

"Oh, young man?"

Owen turned the volume up. With the broken door, potential customers out on the quay could hear the fucking on the computer. Pity Tosh swept for viruses every day, he was sure he could fill up Ianto's drive with something delightfully nasty with a few more websites.

"I say, young man!" The granny was shouting now. Owen grumbled and minimised the window. If the old bat hurt herself, he ought to help her.

Back in the small room beside the toilet, he noticed the bulb that used to shine under the stall door had burned out. Fuck. "What?"

"Could you come in here? I need your help with something."

Owen cringed at the prospect of wiping old lady arse. He considered walking out, then steeled himself. "I'm coming in," he said, closing his eyes.

***

Owen woke up flat on his back in the Tourist Centre, confused as fuck. First, he hadn't been able to fucking sleep since he'd died, so waking up meant he'd been out.

He jabbed a hand against his chest, feeling for a pulse, and came into contact with the weird goopy remnants of his gunshot wound. Also his hand was still broken. And he had no heartbeat. Still dead and loving it. Fuck!

Jagged memories sorted themselves together in his befuddled brain. Owen went through a brief spell of terror. What if he'd hit his head, and scrambled his deceased brain like a leftover egg, and he had to go through his fucking stupid semi-immortal undeath with the IQ of an ice lolly? This brought on memories of Katie, and the weeks of diagnosis, and no, the sharp pain that had nothing to do with nerve endings indicated his mind was working as well as it ever had.

Nerve endings. Owen could experience pressure, and some other sensations, and right at the moment, he was noticing the state of his body. He lifted his head from the floor and glanced down to see his clothes askew, and a certain old friend hanging out in what appeared to be recent use.

Wait. Had he? Had _she_? Mixed up images of the past half hour slowly returned, and he let out a little whoop of joy.

Owen got to his feet just as the secret door to downstairs opened, and Ianto emerged in his normal smarmy state, no doubt about to sass Owen about not eating. That hot bird Amy and her husband were with him, and Owen quickly stuffed his dick away. "I had sex!" he announced proudly.

Rory's eyebrows went up, and he looked at his wife. Amy said to him, "Yeah, the Doctor said they do that all the time here. He blames Jack."

"Everyone blames Jack," Ianto said. "What do you mean you had sex? You can't have sex. Your prick doesn't work. And who would have sex with a corpse?"

"Shows what you know." Before anyone could crack a _rigour mortis_ joke, Owen's patchy memory patched in the identity of his sex partner. Who was still in the loo. "'Scuze me." He pushed past the bead curtain to the back room. The toilet stall was closed.

Owen rapped on the door. "You all right?" There wasn't any reply. "Oi!"

Ianto followed him into the small room. Owen knocked again, worried. "Come on, this isn't funny."

"You had sex in my toilet stall?" Like he could talk. Owen knew for a fact Ianto and Jack had shagged in here loads of times.

Owen looked at him, then turned back to the door. Banging harder. The door latch gave way, and the door fell open.

The Granny fell out onto the floor. Unlike Owen, she wasn't the walking kind of dead.

***

Jack had missed this. They'd spent hours chasing down the alien the Doctor had described, roaming from haunt to haunt, and now they'd reached the best part: running pell-mell through the streets together on the heels of some threat. Jack gloried in the pound of his feet and the heavy breath in his chest. Questions and clean-up could wait.

They trapped the alien from opposite ends of an alley. Jack had his gun, and only as the Doctor approached from the other side did the worry appear in the back of his head. A sonic screwdriver was nice and all, but if the alien attacked, putting chairs together wouldn't be much help, nor any defence.

"Hey, ugly!" Jack shouted, to draw its attention.

"That's not nice," the Doctor admonished, unfortunately drawing it right back. He lowered his hand with the screwdriver and stepped forward. "I'm sure you're very fetching for your species. Which, by the way, and this is rare, I haven't met before. Hello. I'm the Doctor. Don't look me up, that gets all messy. That's my friend Jack behind you. I didn't catch your name."

The creature stared at him, in confusion or dawning rage. Jack stepped closer behind, but at a glance from the Doctor, didn't approach further.

The Doctor waited, but with no response, he continued, "So now that we're all friends, I have a favour to ask. You met my other friend Rory, and you did something to his voice. We'd like to change him back. Rory the Roman, he wouldn't be the same without spouting off in Latin now and then, would he?"

"Roman?" Jack asked, interest piqued.

"Roman Centurion. Also Nestene. Well, he was. Bit muddled. Anyway, we'd like to hear his voice again, so if you could just hand over the cure, we'll be on our way." He gestured at the artefact under the creature's arm.

The alien glared, and raised its laser pistol towards the Doctor, crouching over the artefact. Jack jumped forward, grabbing from behind. The Doctor pulled the pistol from the alien's hand, then held it out like a used handkerchief. The alien in Jack's grip struggled and squirmed. Up close, his light fur turned out to be thin scales, almost protofeathers, prickly and slippery, and smelling like the bottom of a pigeon coop. Jack tried to breathe through his mouth.

"Now, let's not fight," the Doctor said. "Jack, let our new friend go."

The alien twisted, shoving a wing-elbow into Jack's side. "Get the artefact first!"

The Doctor held up his hands, as if he was the one being held hostage. In a voice like a calm lake, he said, "You can let him go. It's all right."

The alien struggled harder, and Jack said, "Are you sure about that?"

"Yeah." A little half-smile crossed his face, and for a second, Jack could see how very old the Doctor truly was.

Jack let go. The creature ignored him and shambled at the Doctor, who didn't move.

"You're so lonely," said the Doctor.

The alien stopped, blinking its third eye.

"Can you make it home from here?" he asked it. "Do you need a lift?"

The alien backed away, and noticed Jack again. It tilted its head, then set the artefact down. It reached out a wing for the pistol, and to Jack's astonishment, the Doctor handed it back, saying, "Thank you."

And it vanished in front of them with a transmat beam that steamed the chilly air of the alley.

When the last wisp of smoke drifted away, Jack's head tilted up to the Doctor's face again. "You're different."

The Doctor poked his own nose, squishing it like Silly Putty, if Silly Putty had cartilage. "Not."

"From the last one. The last you. You don't act like him."

The Doctor said, "That's stupid. It's a stupid thing to say. I can't believe you'd say something that stupid. I am exactly the same me."

Jack took a breath. "That part's the same anyway. No, what I mean, look at this guy. You could have flipped the polarity of his pistol and made it backfire, but you didn't. You changed his mind."

"He changed his mind. I helped a little." The Doctor picked up the artefact resting on the pavement and walked purposefully away.

Jack followed. "The last Doctor I met made noises about giving people choices, but he solved every crisis by reversing the polarity of the neutron flow."

"Ha," said the Doctor, mostly to himself. "Neutron flow. Don't be stupid. You're being stupid again. Neutrons don't flow, and I never did."

"Right." Jack had kept tabs, and he'd talked to Martha, and he'd even wriggled a bit from Donna's grandfather. "You're different now. You reverse the polarity inside people's heads. You don't fix up some machine to backfire on them, you change their minds instead." He grinned. "I like this new you."

The Doctor's mouth twisted, and Jack's heart skipped a beat, sensing a private moment, just the two of them in the universe. Then the Doctor said, "I think this new me is a lot more dangerous. The old me saved the world reversing simple things. Change the world's mind, now that's going to cause problems."

"You changed me." He didn't mean to say the words out loud, but it wasn't as if the Doctor didn't know.

The young-old face, the stranger who knew Jack so well, sized him up with such a familiar nod that Jack's heart skipped and he was in the TARDIS again, Rose asking him to dance. And then it was gone, the old Doctor banished by a quirky smile from the newest one. "You were ready to change. And you're still changing. These new friends of yours have been good for you." He half-shrugged in an awkward, puppet-like fashion. "You keep coming back to them."

Jack let the observation sink inside, to peruse later. "They're worth it." The pair fell into step as they made their way back towards the Hub. "So, about this woman you're marrying."

"She's amazing. Brilliant, mad. Crack shot with a gun."

Jealousy, not a comfortable feeling, squirmed inside him, echoes of a thousand remonstrances. "You don't normally go for that."

"She's not what you'd call 'normal.' Come to think of it, you're the only person I've met who probably would." The Doctor's face, momentarily happy by his distant matrimonial prospect, suddenly soured.

"Think you could bring her by sometime?"

"No. Definitely not."

"Are you sure about this?" Jack didn't want to admit to his worries, but he decided he had the right. He'd been there with Rose, through thick and thin, and now the Doctor was set to marry a stranger instead. Even if Jack wasn't to be anything else to the Doctor, he was his friend. "This isn't like you."

"I've been married before, you know."

He hadn't known, no, but Jack wasn't about to admit that, either. "So have I. That doesn't mean I'm doing it again."

The Doctor's almost non-existent eyebrows raised. "Doesn't it?"

"Of course I'm not." The Doctor's expression caught up with him, and a reminder of every expression his old friend had worn today. "Wait, what do you know?"

The Doctor kept walking, getting ahead of him.

"Doctor?"

The amusement was back on his face, and age, and more. Jack knew he ought to be glad for the Doctor, glad to know good tidings were coming, glad to know the Doctor had found someone he considered enough of an equal to wed. Sure, Jack had the right to be wistful and full of might-have-beens, but he knew what he should be feeling right now was shared happiness for his friend's upcoming joy.

But the Doctor had been looking at Jack like that all day.

Eyes full of delight, the Doctor said a single word: "Spoilers."

***

The four of them stood in a semi-circle around the body in the back. Gwen folded her arms, brows scrunched in concern at the poor, dead old woman. Tosh played with her hands, shooting looks between the corpse and the other corpse. The other corpse continued his smirk, obviously pleased that his penis had worked again, no matter for how short a time, and oblivious to Tosh's discomfiture that he'd once again used it on someone who wasn't her. Ianto stood back, wondering how he was going to clean this up. Had Granny's friends known she was coming here? Could he fake a car accident, or did she not drive any more?

Fuck.

Outside, he could hear Amy catcalling someone on the quay. If she wasn't careful, she'd wind up getting picked up by the police on solicitation, and that had been a pain in the arse to deal with the last time Jack had been up on the same charges.

"The poor dear," Gwen said, finally breaking the shocked silence amongst them.

"Poor her?" Owen asked. "She practically assaulted me."

This won him a sympathetic glance from Gwen, and a question from Ianto. "Were you attacked?"

"No, she called me into the stall. Then she said we ought to have sex."

Tosh asked, "And you said?"

"I started to explain about my lack of blood flow." He cleared his throat, of what who could say? "And then my blood flow issue suddenly wasn't an issue."

Ianto said, "And that's when she assaulted you?"

"Well, no. I reckoned I was there, and she was interested." Seeing their expressions, he moaned, "Come on, it's been _ages_. I haven't had a shag since I died."

Toshiko said, "So when you said she practically assaulted you, what you meant was that she didn't assault you at all."

"When you put it that way, yes."

Gwen asked, "What are we going to do with her?"

"I'll deal with the body," said Ianto. Might as well. It was his job, even if he oughtn't be here. "Unless you care to perform an autopsy first, Dr. Harper?"

Owen prodded the body none too reverently. "Cause of death was a heart attack on account of fantastic sex."

"No," said a new voice. The Doctor strolled in, Jack behind him of course, and Amy and Rory with, making this small space far too tiny.

Jack, Ianto couldn't help but notice, had the mussed hair and 'recently sweaty' look that spoke of recent running or recent fucking. "Who'd you kill while we were gone?" Jack asked in boss voice.

"Well, I…."

"You see, Owen…."

"I told him not to…."

The Doctor looked at the body then stepped over her to reach Owen. He pulled from his own pocket a long device that looked suspiciously like Jack's favourite bedside toy. The item sounded similar to that toy as a green light passed over Owen's abdomen. "The good news is, she didn't impregnate you."

"What the fuck?"

"Listrenite. They mate out of their species, impregnate their partner, then die. The spawn have enough DNA to pass for a member of their birth parent's species, but go on to breed using the alien genetic material."

Jack made a face and scratched his stomach unhappily. "Oh, one of those. I ran into one once. Didn't think we had a colony here. That'll be tomorrow's project. We'll have to eradicate them or tell them to move."

"A colony of what?"

"Listrenites," said the Doctor, annoyed. "Really, don't you train your people here?"

Jack said, "It's in the employee manual not to shag any aliens."

The sudden outbreak of suspiciously-innocent expressions in the small room probably did not fool the Doctor, but before he could comment, there was a noise from the office area. Ianto pushed past the bead curtain.

The group of tourists looked vaguely familiar. The sticky-fingered young boy with them brought the memory into sharp focus. Ianto aimed for a polite expression. "May I help you?"

The mum slammed her hand on the counter. "My daughter said she was given cigarettes here when we came in earlier. How dare you give a child those awful cancer sticks!"

Ianto reared back from the woman's anger. "Excuse me?"

By her side, the sweet-faced young cherub of a girl who'd stolen his fags beamed at him. "You gave them to me."

"I did not. You took the pack, young lady."

The dad said, "Are you accusing my daughter of stealing and lying?"

"They were sitting out, she took them." This had been a long, stupid day. Normally, Ianto could manage polite even to the worst customers, but he was having none of it tonight. "Perhaps if you'd supervise your children more closely," this was to the boy who had started pushing thumbprints into the frosted glass, "we wouldn't have this problem." He didn't add, "You idiot" but his tone left nothing to the imagination, and he didn't care.

The mum said, "I'm going to speak to your supervisor about this!"

Jack took the opportunity to come out past the beaded curtain. As the family watched, open-mouthed, so did the rest of the team. "Hi," said Jack. "Can we help you?"

The woman sized up the five of them. "Which one of you is in charge here?"

"I am." Jack folded his arms. "Why?"

His natural charm butted ineffectively against her annoyance. "This clerk gave our daughter cigarettes and he has been terribly rude to us. It's a shameful face to put on Visit Wales."

Jack tilted his head to Ianto, then back to the family. Behind them, Gwen and Owen started laughing. "I find that hard to believe."

"Believe what you like, we will be making a complaint about your office. What were you doing back there, anyway?" The mum craned her neck. Unfortunately, the dead Granny-alien's foot was just visible under the curtain until Tosh hurriedly shoved it away. From inside the smaller room, there was a loud whine, and a man's voice said, "Thank God!"

Jack sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm sure there's just been a misunderstanding. Why don't you step in, we'll all have a cup of tea, and we'll chat." It was Gwen's normal patter for setting up witnesses with Retcon, and the look he gave the others strongly hinted someone ought to grab the bottle.

The mum's lips pursed into a tight, straight line. The dad's brow furled as he stared at Jack, and a distinct expression crawled over his plain face: recognition, with accompanying fear. At the same time, Jack's own eyes brightened and he relaxed into a more comfortable pose. "Oh, hey. Almost didn't recognise you, Snowball. How've you been?"

Owen mouthed, "Snowball?"

"Hi. Been … Been fine, yeah. Got married. Hi." He stammered, dropped a glance to his wife significantly.

And Ianto knew better. He did. He'd been in the man's shoes wondering how the people in his life would react to finding out about him. He knew the fear, knew that coming out was supposed to be a personal decision, not something you did to someone else.

He knew all that, and later he felt very guilty even though by then the Retcon would have wiped away the event from the man's memories.

In the now, he glared at Jack and said, "Let me guess. One of the thousand you've slept with."

Jack glared. "You. Out. I will deal with you later." Tosh had already found the drawer with the Retcon stash, and Gwen pushed back through the curtain to fetch the electric kettle as Jack soothed the angry tourists.

Ianto stormed outside, itching for his smokes and even more irate that he didn't have any. Night had brought all the lights on the water in the Bay. He stared at the waves and fumed, too angry to go back inside, too tied to this fucking place to leave before Jack said so.

A shadow darkened the lit doorway. For a moment, Ianto was stupid enough to think it was Jack, and he himself would be stupid enough to apologise. Maybe.

Instead, Rory wandered out, and joined him by the rail. "We're heading out. Thanks for having us."

"Whatever. Fine, You're welcome."

Through the doorway, he could see Amy flirting with Jack, who flirted back just as outrageously. Even without hearing their words, he could lip-read Jack: "And that's only the first session."

To which Amy replied, "First? I don't even get going until the third."

"Christ, there's two of them," Ianto said, amazed.

"Yeah. Amy flirts with everyone she meets. It's who she is. I remember one timeline where she worked as a kissogram. Did you know, she ran off with the Doctor the night before our wedding?" Rory smiled tightly, privy to a joke he wasn't sharing. "But even if she's kissed a hundred people, I'm the one she loves." He gave Ianto a companionable nod. "See you."

Ianto didn't watch him go. He heard Amy's warm laugh envelop Rory as he went back inside to say his goodbye, and Ianto knew that laugh, knew the cadence even from the unfamiliar voice. She'd minx around Jack and everyone else, but her heart was Rory's, and it lightened as soon as he entered the room. Jack laughed the same way whenever Ianto came down to the main Hub.

***

Jack yelled at Owen to help Ianto finish the door repair and talked the Doctor into staying long enough to see the dead Listrenite's body downstairs. Now that Rory was cured, a familiar wanderlust had returned to the Doctor's eyes, already fixed on a mental horizon limited only by his imagination. Jack remembered their days together, remembered the mad grin and random flips of the TARDIS's controls, next stop anywhere.

Beside Gwen, Amy and Rory peeked excitedly at an artefact Toshiko had brought out, both careful not to touch, but clearly eager to keep exploring. It was their turn to ride the ride, to spin the wheel, and tagging along on their journey would feel wrong. Intrusive. The past was tempting mainly for its false perfection.

The present, as he discovered when checking the kitchenette, had ordered his favourite lasagne and had reserved two pieces, with a second plate on top to keep them warm with the leftover garlic bread.

"I could invite you along," the Doctor said, taking in the plate and Jack's fork with a knowing look. Immediately Gwen and Tosh went silent, straining unapologetically for his answer. Before he could give one, the Doctor added, "But you'd only say no again."

"Call when you need my help, and I'll be there with bells on."

Amy asked with a grin, "Are you open to suggestions on where to put the bells?" Rory rolled his eyes, either forgetting he could talk again, or knowing it would be pointless.

Jack matched her grin. "For you, I'll show up in bells alone."

"Right," said Rory, stepping between them, but Jack stayed back and took a bite of his lasagne.

Around his chewed bite, he asked the Doctor, "Are you inviting me to the wedding?"

"And watch you keep flirting with my mother-in-law? No, you're not invited. You never invite me to yours, I'm certainly not going to invite you to mine. Fair's fair."

And with those very confusing back to back statements, the Doctor said, "Come along, Ponds," and stepped onto the stone for the invisible lift, which he activated with his screwdriver like the big drama queen he insisted he wasn't. The three of them rose to the street and were gone.

Jack spent an extra five seconds chewing, then swallowed noisily before he said, "Huh."

***

Ianto stared at the door frame with no motivation. Another hour would see the job finished, and he could go home, but what was the point? He rarely slept in his own bed any more, and after his admittedly stupid display earlier, Jack wasn't going home with him tonight. He'd be lucky if Jack didn't tag along with the Doctor for a bit of fun, flirting with the Ponds and travelling again.

As he hammered the last of the frame into place, Ianto wondered if that's why he'd done it. Jack was always the one to leave, and the one who decided to come back. But if Ianto pushed Jack away first, why then _he_ was in charge of the relationship, and he wouldn't have to hurt as badly watching Jack go this time.

From inside, Owen was swearing. Ianto had insisted he clean up the clutter in the toilet stall, since he'd caused it.

"Don't think I'm cleaning up your mess, too!" came an echoed shout bookended with expletives. "Christ, how many times has he had you up against the wall in here?"

He wasn't going to rise to the bait. Owen didn't need to know who'd had whom where.

"On second thought, you're not tall enough to make these stains. Must be from one of the other blokes he's been shagging."

He wasn't going to rise to the bait. He wasn't.…

"I reckon now the Doctor's finished his booty call, they'll be off."

The door was finished. It was an ugly job, but Ianto could barely see through the red mist forming in front of his eyes. He took the moment to set the fucking thing into the hinges so he could slam it properly before stalking into the back.

Owen sat on the floor, not having touched a single stain, including the rather pathetic mess where his now-deceased partner had lain. He gave Ianto a sharp grin, daring him to do or say something. Ianto pictured throwing the first punch, and the satisfying thud of his fist into Owen's face. They'd tussle, each aiming for the advantage, both aware of and ignoring the problem that any damage Owen sustained would be permanent.

It'd be so easy.

Ianto sat down next to him on the messy floor. "Why are you trying to get me to hit you?"

"Because you're a prick." He threw his sponge at a spot on the floor, where it squelched.

"That's a step up. Does it mean I've joined you in the ranks of the obnoxious camp?"

Owen went to say something, but he caught Ianto's eye and let out a chuckle instead. "You have. The boy becomes a man at long last."

"Arse."

"Whiny nitwit who doesn't see what he's got."

Ianto pulled back. "Excuse me?"

"You've spent all day moaning about coming in on your day off, about the door, about the arsehole tourists, about your slutty boyfriend, about the Doctor."

"I haven't said a word about the Doctor." He'd been good.

"I suppose glaring daggers into his back every time he turns around isn't moaning, it's just being petty and jealous of someone who got on the list before you did. You ought to be fucking relieved that you're the last one. After tonight, _my_ last shag is always going to be a dead old lady alien who was trying to get me up the duff." Owen banged his head back against the wall.

"Why _did_ you shag her?"

"My dick was working again. I wasn't going to argue. Guess that alien species can get me moving a bit." Owen looked thoughtful. "Jack said we might have a nest of them somewhere close. Reckon he'd let me go in after them first?"

"You're seriously contemplating going into a nest of aliens to have sex with them."

"And they'll croak as soon as they're done without successfully breeding. It'd be a public service. I ought to get a medal. Fucking in the line of duty."

That led him back to thoughts of today, and Jack. "Do you think he's going to swan off with the Doctor again?"

"Sure."

Ianto twinged, and glared at Owen, who only shrugged. "Next time the Earth's in danger, the Doctor'll show up on our doorstep, and Captain Reckless will go off to help and still be home for tea just like last time. And if you stop being such a whiny tit, he might let you go along. He's mad about you, God knows why."

"He's not."

Owen rolled his eyes. "No? You know for a fact that he could do better than your pasty arse. He has done better, case in point was in this office today. Hell, _I_ could pull better than you, and I'm dead and impotent. But for reasons only known to idiots from the 51st century, you're the only one he's been with for over three years. So quit your fucking whining, and appreciate it. Jesus."

Amy had recognised him, which meant they would run into one another again. As a rule, the Doctor's presence meant trouble, so yes, Jack was likely going to go off to help him in future. And he would come back.

Ianto got to his feet, and bent over to get the sponge. "Here." He threw it to Owen.

"What?"

"My part's done and I've closed the office. You clean up in here. I'm going out." He needed to clear his head, needed some space.

"Where are you going?"

"I haven't decided yet."

***

He ought to play a game up here. Maybe get a ball, kick it around, punt it off the side of the building into someone unsuspecting. Ianto leaned over the edge to look, wondering who he'd bean. At this time of night, only the drunks and the uni students. God, he wanted a smoke.

"I had a feeling you'd be up here."

He didn't turn around. He'd half-expected Jack's arrival. "You did threaten to install that tracking device."

"Only the once." Jack came up behind him. "I managed to find a place that was open." He offered a small white cardboard box, pushed out in front of Ianto. "I almost forgot. But I wondered why you were so pissed off today."

Ianto turned his head, not looking at Jack. He took the box, and carefully opened the string tying it closed. The scent of chocolate and sugar hit him. A fairy cake.

"You told me once that she liked strawberry with chocolate frosting. That took a little persuading, but I got the baker to put it together." His face was open, quiet. Jack Harkness was known for stupidly grand gestures, not thoughtful ones, and he was clearly nervous. He reached into a pocket. "I brought a candle, if you wanted one."

"Thanks."

A month ago he'd looked at the calendar and realised she'd be turning thirty, if she hadn't been dead almost four years. He'd requested the day off, because going in to work at the place where she'd died was too hard to contemplate.

Ianto pushed the candle into the chocolate frosting, and fumbled his lighter open.

"Wanna sing?" asked Jack.

"No." He watched the candle burn, and he thought about Lisa's last birthday party, how their friends had come, how her girlfriends had giggled and whispered, and one of his mates asked Ianto if he was going to propose. "Not today," he'd said, knowing the ring she'd been eyeing would cost more than he had saved up. Waiting was more sensible.

"Sorry," he said, to the candle, to the cake, to the ghost on the rooftop with him. He huffed out the flame. He pulled apart the fairy cake, making a messy pile of crumbs, and offered the smaller half to Jack, who chewed his portion noisily. Jack was an idiot, and sometimes a slob, and certainly a pain, and he'd had sex with over a thousand people, but Owen was right about one thing. The last number on that long list had been Ianto.

He ate his own part of the cake more slowly. He never liked this variety, but Lisa always had. Happy birthday, sweetheart, he thought, and wiped the crumbs off his hands.

"Can we go home now?" Jack asked. The almost-hidden hesitation in the query added a silent, "Are we okay?"

"Can I have tomorrow off?"

"No. We have to deal with the Listrenites."

"Then we should go home." They helped each other upright, and made their way to the staircase, dropping crumbs behind themselves like children lost in the woods together.

***  
The End  
***


End file.
